That was kind of cute. She pretended to know too little, he too much, and they flirted like this for the first quarter as the Mavs and Rockets collided.

“Here comes our boy Roy.”

The crowd gave it up as Perkins high-fived his way to the bench. The whistle and the inbound and Tarpley was on Hakeem’s hip.

Cady pulled her hair back over her neck. “You remember Julie Houlihan? She went to Rita’s with us?”

Dan thought of himself lurking below the Ursuline balcony that night of the dance. “Yup.”

“Well, Samantha Schimmel told her that she heard from Misti Ushio that Jasmine D’Errico did it with Trey Diller.”

“Wait, Trey Miller, the senior?”

“Noooo! Trey Diller, the junior.”

Growing up in Dallas, you ran into a fair share of Treys. But Trey Diller, class of 1988, was a Spicoli-style burnout, and Jasmine was the prissy empress of the homecoming court. This was total Breakfast Club territory.

“That can’t be true.”

“I know, so gross, right?”

“Well . . .” Dan was left to figure out the gross part as Tarpley stole the dump pass to Hakeem and then dribbled out into a fast break and rifled a no-look pass to Brad Davis for a corner three. Mavs rolling. The crowd tom-toms: De-fense. De-fense.

“I bet she has herpes now,” Cady said in a very sad, resigned way. “Also I heard everyone is bailing on the winter formal because Caroline Mackenzie’s parents are away and that’s where the party is going to be.”

“Wait, when is that?”

“January twenty-second.”

Dan knew when it was. In fact he had been planning on asking Cady to go to the winter formal at the end of the night. “I can’t even think about our school calendar right now, so depressing.”

“Totally.” And then Cady revealed her agenda. “So we should, like, meet up at Caroline’s that night.”

“Sure. That’s cool.”

“Cool.”

So two dates now? That’s sort of good. Time to do something gentlemanly to earn this. “Can I get you a hot dog?”

“A hot dog?” Cady shot him a startled look. “Gross.”

“So two hot dogs then? Extra sauerkraut?”

“You’re insane.” Cady flicked her hair again. “I’ve got gum. I’m good.” She pointed at the purple wad smooshed between her molars.

“Yeah, I’m good too.” Dan was starving—somehow chips and queso had made him more hungry. In the blocks, Tarpley drove in for an over-the-head dunk as Hakeem wisely cleared out. The crowd roared, and Bill Fitch slapped his clipboard and called a time-out. Mavs up by six now.

“Such a good game!”

Cady didn’t hear him as the crowd screamed even louder at the forced time-out. “You want to walk around a little?”

Sigh. “Sure, let’s do it.”